


Wolf Juvie

by oonaseckar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Werewolves, lycanthropy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 7,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25804444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Draco - orphaned, short on funds and with Bellatrix Black Lestrange as his guardian - has enough on his plate.  Getting bit and changing into a werewolf, that's the cherry on top.And then he gets sent to wolf juvie, and meets this Harry Potter kid...
Relationships: Bellatrix Black Lestrange & Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A more mundane world - powered, but no separate wizarding world to retreat to.

First thing to do is get bit. Get bit, become a werewolf, go crazy on the full moon. Run around a 24/7 superstore in the middle of the night savaging people, after you've failed to take your suppressant meds.

Then, because you're still underage for trial and conviction, juvenile court will send you to Hartstone Juvenile Correction Centre. It's your local one-stop shop for underage supernaturals who've offended, and failed to observe the code of conduct for registered non-naturotypicals.

Technically, it's not _actually_ juvie. Not if you take juvie to mean a low-fat stevia-sweetened substitute for adult prison, at least. Instead, it's a lot closer to being your average inpatient adolescent mental health care unit, annexed to the state hospital. Except where you'd normally expect to find the place packed out with anorexics, bulimics, drug addicts, alcoholics and teenage selfie-addicted narcissists, it's... No, actually, there are plenty of those too, or residents who combine those qualities with other, more supernatural ones.

But what the unit's actually for, is the rest. The witches, the teen-vampires, the trolls and pixies and naiads. The warlocks, the fairies.

The wolves.

Like Draco, the wolves.


	2. Chapter 2

Then, there you are. In juvie, taking your monthly cycle suppressants like a good little... girl? A good little boy. With the charge nurse checking your tongue and throat afterwards, to make damn sure. (It's actually a variant on the contraceptive pill. Because 1) they don't want teen-wolves getting pregnant. Way too complicated. But also, 2) the werewolf neuronal transmitters are based on some of the same hormonal catabolic and anabolic pathways as the ones related to ovulation and menstruation. Like, hmm, right? _Interesting_. Plus, apparently male wolves have similar symptoms to PMS, as well as the girls. 

Wow, Draco really, really _super_ regrets not being more sympathetic with Pansy, when she used to bang on about her stomach cramps, and get a bit stressy on a monthly basis.

So for those of you lucky enough not to get bit... Just know, once a month you're not that far off from biting the nearest miscreant and running howling under the moon. It seems. You probably already know that. But still.)

High school sucks. Everyone knows that highschool sucks.

Draco would pay good money to be in highschool now, though. Highschool is _heaven_ –- probably heaven –- compared to Wolf Juvie.

Well, Wolf Juvie is what most of the kids in here call it, anyway. Officially it's the Hartstone County Support Facility for Affect Youth. That's 'affect' youth, not affected –- not phoney and putting up a front. Although plenty of the kids here would qualify for that description, too, Draco thinks.

God knows how the therapists and scientists came up with the 'affect' term as jargon for what it's used to describe, now. Which is, basically, _spooky doin's._ Everything you can think of, every trope –- witches, vampires, trolls, fairies, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, all the monsters and magic of every fairy story from Grimm onwards.

And werewolves, of course, too. It's important not to forget the werewolves, although it's just chance that they were the ones that someone decided to nick-name this little hellhole for. About a third of the population of the facility is lupine, at Draco's best estimate. People come and go, are released and admitted all the time, of course. But nationally, it's approximately correct. A whole lot of 'affected' youth are wolves, although not a majority.

Including Draco. He's one of the affected, and he's wolf, too.

Right now, it's a weekday mid-morning, and he should be in double chemistry or giggling and goofing off in a drama class, kicking the back of Dean Thomas's chair in math when he won't give Draco the answer. (Draco used to be a little bit of an asshole, in school. He's learnt a little empathy, since then. And anyway, if he was lucky enough to be back in class, he wouldn't be wasting the time harassing sweet dumb smart Dean, or zoning out of boring classes. God, he could be in advanced classes getting a head start on college, he could be working on the school newspaper, he could be in glee club getting on everyone's nerves with an acapella session on every corner of campus, he – well, he would never do any of these things. But if he was still in school, then he could be doing them. That's the point.)

He isn't in school, isn't in a classroom. He's in the support facility rec room, kicking at the leg of the table-tennis table, from where he's sprawled in an armchair with sagging stuffing and torn slipcovers. It's post-breakfast –- oatmeal and super-healthy granary toast with grains in it, yuk, and sloppy scrambled eggs –- and pre-counselling seshes. But Draco doesn't need counselling, for Christ's sake.

He isn't nuts, he isn't mentally unstable. Or not more than any other adolescent. He's a wolf, that's all. But that's been re-classified as an 'undesirable condition', now – an 'affect'.

Maybe he's brooding about that a little bit, maybe he's kicking the table a bit harder than necessary. But the rec-room's deserted, so does it matter? Everyone disappears back to their rooms to sleep some more after breakfast. Because the orderlies drag the kids out of bed at the crack of dawn, practically. Well, if you're a teenager it's the asscrack of dawn, anyhow.

Then there's a footstep in the doorway behind him –- he's dragged the armchair to have his back to the doorway, because ignoring the world is his _modus operandi_ at this point. The world _sucks_.

It's got to be an orderly, and Draco's tired of orderlies. It's getting harder all the time, to bite his lip and not curse them out, when they dole out the same old sweet reason and psych-speak. Along with a handful of pills, of course.

He doesn't open his mouth, waits out whoever it is. Because he's a sulky teenager, of course, and he'd hate to disappoint by failing to live up to the stereotype. Except that whoever it is –- Neville, with the saddened, patient look on his face? Hannah, roots showing on her dye-job and tired of Draco's shit? -- has more patience than he does. Or is more of an asshole. But no-one's more of an asshole than Draco. He prides himself on it.

He's rigid in the chair, where he was floppy and relaxed with only his kicking leg taut and active, just moments before. His teeth are gritted. He's not going to speak, not going to speak, he's not going to... He can't take it, and he opens his mouth. “Hey, if you've come with my pills, I can suggest an alternative hole you can stick 'em in,” he snaps out, and...

“You've got a pretty mouth,” a soft voice drawls at him. “It's just a shame what comes out of it, that's all.”

And that voice loosens up his rigid limbs, but good enough to swing 'em flailing wild, as Draco straightens up.

His chair nearly goes over backwards, and him with it. But he rights himself, and jerks around. To look, to see.

It’s Lupin, leaning in, gazing at him impassively. Looking pretty hot, in black jeans and a rodeo shirt, patent black boots with a cuban heel. (He likes to pair that Brit accent with a bizarro selection of Americana cliché, as far as his wardrobe goes. Draco thinks it’s just one more way to put patients off guard, on the back foot. For another instance of which, just check out that startlingly inappropriate greeting. Standard fare, for Lupin.)

“Good to see you starting the day with a positive attitude, Malfoy,” he says now. Impassive as ever, frustratingly so. (Hot.) “Start as you mean to go on. Don’t forget we’ve got an appointment on Friday.” And he salutes, lightly, like he thinks he’s a cowboy or a Star Trek cadet, ducks out of the door way and goes on his way. Whistling, lightly.

Anyhow... Where was Draco, before this... this unacceptable interruption? Yeah. Talkin' about juvie, right? Brooding, in a wolfy way. That's how you find your ass in juvie. Along with the snarling and drooling and... oh, well, the biting.

In juvie, with a hot warlock boy giving you the side-eye across the rec room and in group therapy, every week, every day, every hour. And a still hotter psychiatrist and counselor having one-on-one sessions with you, every third day. (Not as hot as it sounds, except in ways it shouldn't be. Draco is supposed to be focusing on his _treatment_ , on getting a better attitude and maintaining his drug schedule. Adjusting to becoming a werewolf, before he can even legally get a beer and get down with a boy. Or a girl. _Anyone_!)

Dr Lupin is way too old for him -– he has to be twenty-six at least, and maybe older. And he never gives the least indication that he's actually interested, anyhow. There's the odd trip-up comment, just to shake you, Draco thinks. To make you think. But mostly, he just talks about the standard dumbass shrink stuff –- about reaching out to Draco's _inner wolf_ , learning to make peace with the creature inside, _yada-yada-bing-bong._ All the woo-woo stuff that's in every parent's guide to a kid who's come out as lupine, or witch, or whatever. He might as well just be reading it off a teleprompter.

And while you're trying to cope with that, and work out what you actually think about both of those vastly, unnervingly hot dudes, there's your aunt. Your crazy _bitch_ -aunt, the young one who's your legal guardian, now –- since your parents were killed. And the less that you think about that, the better.

So, those are the things to do. If you're Draco. If you want to know how to get where he is now. A teenage new wolf, and in juvie. With parents who are lost, and gone. And an aunt who may – Draco suspects –- be stealing his inheritance. That's after stabbing Draco in the back, snitching to the medical authorities after he _accidentally_ forgot his meds that _one_ time, _one time._..


	3. Chapter 3

And he'll just go crazy, if he lets himself begin brooding about _that_ all over again. That's all old news, now. He's been in Haywharf 'wolf juvie' for four months, now. It's two months until he should be allowed unsupervised off-grounds privileges, and another three months beyond that before he has a chance of being allowed a provisional return to regular life, to home and school. That's if he gets through his first review board, and the odds aren't good for that. Almost no-one gets through their first review board. Why would the board let you off with no more than a tap on the wrist? The general public is terrified of supernatural adolescents. Politically speaking, keeping them under lock and key is a surefire vote-winner.

It's been six months, now, since his aunt called social services, informed on him to the cops, washed her hands of Draco and put him in wolf juvie. Six months of being a good boy and taking his meds, _yes miss no miss_ to the orderlies and charge nurses, going to counselling and keeping up with his self-study program. (Maybe he'll be able to graduate with his class, if they ever let him back in high school. He didn't actually _kill_ anyone. A little mauling and wounding, yes, but no bodies. They'll let him back, won't they?)

Six months of resisting the pull of the moon, feeling the deadened sickened muffled throb around that time, sleeping through it, feeling the fog and the malaise. Six months of human shape, of faint nausea all the time from the meds. He's a good boy, though. He'd take them, even if the grim-faced charge-nurses didn't check his mouth and cheeks to make sure he's swallowed. Even if they didn't bar toilet visits for a half-hour after, so he can't make himself puke before they've begun to dissolve.

Now, Draco's seventeen, not quite the kid he was when all of this kicked off. It's a Tuesday morning, after the first breakfast that no-one barring him turns up for. Bunch of idle slackers, the rest of the supernatural cohort are. Him and the nurses, them watching him as he stirs his oatmeal and stares out the window. (Stares out the window, wondering what blood and gristle would taste like between his teeth, how it would feel to run again, to run _wild_ again, to –- no. He knows better than to let himself think that way.)


	4. Chapter 4

Now he's done pretending to eat grains and fruits, to be a good little herbivore. Breakfast's over, and he re-locates to the rec room to hang until someone, somewhere shows signs of life. (The rest of the residents aren't really such clods and vegetables as he likes to make out to himself. It's just that the meds seem to have less effect on him than on most of the kids in here, even though he gets double and even triple doses of most of them. The majority of these baby wizards and naiads and whatnot are doped-up, vegetablistic replicas of their real selves, sleeping their days away instead of razing the land with spells and running amok, chewing up baby rabbits and fauns. As far as he can see, Draco is the only one going white-knuckle, the pills a mere aid to gritted-teeth willpower.)

So he's in the rec-room alone, and he slumps down into one of the plasticky easy-chairs. He's sweaty and uncomfortable, and he screws up paper from yesterday's craft-session remnants into little balls. Then he plays at shooting hoops, with the paper balls and the trashcan. It's as much fun as pretty much anything else in this little baby-prison. Draco grinds his teeth and thinks about the moon, about the wind whistling past his pushed-back pricked ears, furry ears, about twitching his snout at the scent of rabbit on the wind–-.

Damn it, he used to be a normal kid. Boring normal, wonderfully boring.

“Bet I can take you, two for two,” says a voice from behind him. “Throw me one of those, I'll do it right from here.”


	5. Chapter 5

Damn. Draco had thought he was alone, and his heart races a little at being crept up on from behind. Lucky he's well-medicated, lucky it's thirty-six hours off full moon and the wolf is still lurking under the surface. Inches deep, instead of just under a film of skin, ready to break through to the surface like a dog diving and surfacing in a clear silver lake. Or anyone surprising him might get more than he bargained for. Draco winces at the memory of coming to in that mall eighteen months back. At scattered fractured memories, of _screams_ and _blood,_ and alluring warm-bodied creatures running and running away, as he playfully pursued...

Never mind that. He jerks his attention back to this second, this moment, and swivels around in his chair. With a sullen certitude, he expects one of the orderlies or charge-nurses. Most probably with extra pills in hand, suspecting him of spitting his last dose into the remains of his oatmeal, or through the vents in the failing aircon. The last thing he needs is an extra dose of snooze pills, silencing his personality at the same time they repress the wolf that's grown inside him. The wolf that reminds him with little growls and pinches that it wants _out_ , often.

But it isn't a member of staff, no sir. It's _Harry_. The new guy. The _warlock_ new guy.

He's leaning against the door-frame and watching Draco, a slight smile on his face. And Draco flushes and tingles a little, under his gaze. Because _he's_ noticed Draco, and Draco's noticed _him._ But neither of them have acknowledged that, in the week since he arrived in the unit. They haven't even spoken to each other, not until now.

It's not that he's so hot. Or at least, he isn't smooth and regular and handsome, not magazine-cover material. But he has that kind of lanky spectacled aloofness, a scar on his forehead and a silent tension about him, combined with green eyes and a scruffy boho style... It works, somehow, and is hot in its own way. A moody, dark foil for a pretty boy. And before he was a wolf, Draco was a pretty boy. Still is. The boy inside still talks to him sometimes, too, co-existing with the wolf. 

This Harry Potter, he's tall, lanky but some muscle under it, at least for his age, and taller than Draco and he just _has_ something, all right, that something you've either got or you don't.


	6. Chapter 6

Draco doesn't think that Potter's really talking about making shots in the basket, right now, but it's the easiest thing to deal with, just the same. So he pulls his paper-balls in, gathers them into his arms and presses them up against his chest, and gives him a defiant look. It's not flirting. Not much. “Get your own,” he says, in a voice that might as well say 'Come and sit by me, see if you can persuade me into it.'

And he's a little out of practice, but that's what he does. It's a bit much when Potter perches on the arm of his chair, and picks a paper-ball out of the little goodie-store Draco's got pushed up against his chest. (It isn't like it's inappropriate. Potter's fingers are long and agile, and it's as chaste as anything –- well, slightly inappropriate can be. Skin doesn't brush against skin, he doesn't lunge at Draco or try a grope or anything gross. Draco doesn't think he's that kind of guy, with someone he doesn't know. That doesn't exactly mean that he seems like a safe kind of guy.

“Really?” Potter asks, smiling down at Draco, playing with the little ball of paper between his fingers. “You won't let me have just this one?” They haven't been this close up until now. They've just eyed each other across big rooms, from the first evening that Potter arrived, dumped on the drive by a sober dark-suited woman who didn't stick around, just handed his cases over to security and drove off again without a hug or a kiss or anything to mark her out as somebody belonging to him.

His eyes are dark green. They look doped, and wild. Draco knows that Potter's not a wolf, from the usual gossip amongst the other s/n kids, and the staff. He's a warlock, moderate strength, nothing unusual. But if Draco didn't know, then he'd wonder.


	7. Chapter 7

Draco's wolf is quiet, though. It doesn't think Potter's a threat, and Draco usually trusts it to know. Still, he draws back a little bit in his chair. He's not creeped, but he is _cautious_. He's had enough _crazy_ , in the past eighteen months, that he's cautious about pretty much everything. “Sure,” he says coolly, looking up at Potter. “Why don't you show me what you can do?”

And the waste-basket's way over on the other side of the room –- enough to challenge _even_ Draco. (Because he used to play at school, he has chops in the game.) He can't hide a little smirk, when Potter lifts the paper and draws his shoulder back. Because his form and action are _all wrong,_ and Draco can tell he's barely played basketball in his life, even with an actual ball and a hoop. He's got _no_ chance of making it.

Except, he uses the skills he has. He gives the little paper ball a casual toss, not nearly enough or angled right to go far enough, to have a hope in hell of reaching the basket. It should fall about a couple of feet beyond the middle of the room, way before it can reach the opposite wall. Fall onto the shiny blue-and-green tiles, a tired 70s color scheme that's so dated it's practically back in again.

It doesn't fall though, and it doesn't follow a natural arc, either. Just as it begins to accept the rule of the law of gravity, to sink towards the shiny gleam of the floor, it –- pauses. Pauses, and defies gravity –- begins to move forward, instead, absolutely level, no arc, no curve to its trajectory. It flies forward like a plane or a hovercraft, under its own steam –- or that's what it looks like. And it deposits itself with a demure little _flick_ into the trash-basket, right in front of both their eyes.

And Draco turns around to take a good look at Potter, pressing his lips together. He wants to laugh, to smile in wonder. But already he has a feeling that this guy doesn't need the encouragement. “That's cheating,” he says, and tries to sound disapproving.

But Potter only smiles, and shrugs at him. He's more languidly wrapped around the side of the chair than he was a minute ago, although there's nothing suggestive of an imminent move being made. He's lean and dark and moody-looking, a stereotypical boho type. Yet he gives off the vibe of a big cat, feline, a big lazy animal-type. Which is odd, given that Draco's the wolf-boy, and Potter's the warlock. Shouldn't he be cerebral, bony, twitchy, intense? That's the stereotype, anyhow. “I hone my skills, you hone yours,” he points out, and he's watching Draco now, still and thoughtful. “It seems fair to me.”


	8. Chapter 8

It's perhaps not an unreasonable point, even if it wouldn't get him far on the basketball court. A full court press would be the _least_ of it, if he tried any magical tactics against Draco's old highschool's home team. But still. Draco screws up his nose at Potter, and accuses. “You're skipping your meds?” he asks, hissing it under his breath. (You never know when an orderly might be lurking about, the nosey so-and-so's.) “You shouldn't even be _able_ to do that, should you?” The nurses watch them like hawks. And even if they didn't, Draco has enough remorse and regret, enough social responsibility, that he would never. The damn drugs... but he would _never_.

It makes him feel queer and queasy and resentful, just the idea of it. He pushes himself up off the chair and takes a step away from Potter, eyeing him warily. But Potter just lounges there and laughs at him, like _he's_ the crazy one, or over-reacting. “Yeah, I'm a bad boy,” he says, amiably. “I'm Harry Potter, right? And you're... Draco. Draco Malfoy? The nurses call you Malfoy, I've heard 'em. I've seen you around since I got here, but you keep disappearing off into your room and for counseling sessions with that freak Sirius Black. What's his deal anyway?” Potter has a slight European accent, and with that first name Draco's betting it's English, overlaid with Standard American from however many years he's been over here. Maybe it's why he's _weird_.

Draco is technically English, himself. But it's very technical, at this point.


	9. Chapter 9

Draco doesn't even want to get into that. He's having enough trouble, trying to evaluate and negotiate his counseling sessions with the (young, fine, superhot) consultant psychiatrist on the staff, without getting into a discussion about exactly what _kind_ of a freak he is, or if he is one at all. “Beats me,” he says shortly, smoothing down the unflattering grey sweatshirt he's wearing over dark-blue board shorts. “Anyway. Nicetameetcha, gotta go. Things to do, wolfy to be. Gotta go brood over the moon some.” His hair's cut short too, hacked by his own hand since he got dumped here like an unwanted parcel, and altogether he's never made less effort in his life to be attractive. It's his penance, maybe. Or maybe all the _crazy_ and _misery_ has just sucked the moxie right out of him.

It doesn't seem to be putting Potter off, though. Or not _enough_. Even as Draco moves to take another step back, he reaches out quick as magic, and grabs a hold of him by the wrist. Which is pretty rude, but Potter's already talking and Draco's already listening. It's not a grip to hurt, and Potter lets go as soon as he's got Draco's attention.

“What, that's it?” he asks. He's smiling, like cool boys smile. It's a weapon in his possession, and he thinks he can _manipulate_ Draco with it, get him to do things that aren't in his own best interest. But Draco knows boys like that already. “Don't you ever, like, talk? Do the social thing? Just hang?” Potter asks. He can probably see the negative response on Draco's face, and steamrollers over it. “Well you _ought_ to. We're all treated like crazies and freaks enough in society, we shouldn't treat each other that way. Shunning is no way to treat your fellow monsters, Malfoy. You know the moon is full in a couple of nights, right?”

“Of course I know,” Draco mutters. He ought to just storm off, and leave Potter to be slick and manipulative and cool all by himself. He'd have lapped this approach up, two years back, but a lot's happened since then. He's a _wolf_. Is he not going to know the phase of the moon, just by the internal tides of his body, just by the whispers of his hormones and the secret other self that inhabits him since he got bit? What an idiot Potter must be. Draco knows the full's coming better than _anyone_.


	10. Chapter 10

“Then why don't you do what I do?” Potter murmurs. His voice has dropped a couple of registers, wary of any eavesdropping orderlies lurking around the hallways. “If you can skip a couple of doses of meds, then we could have a bit of fun. I've got a friend who used to work here, he knows what night-nurses kip in the dayroom when they should be patrolling, and where the keys are kept. Keep yourself alert and powered, and we could sneak out, when the moon comes callin'. Have some fun, run, just go wild -- not be stuck locked up in here the whole time. Come on, what do you reckon?” He's grinning at Draco, more wolfish than Draco ever looks to himself in the mirror. Making beckoning little gestures at him, inciting him to misbehavior.

He's clearly bad news, and it's a bad idea.

Draco doesn't want to skip his meds, actually. Maybe he's not precisely a straight-arrow good boy, not all the time, or he hasn't been. But other people paid the price the last time his wolf got out, and he doesn't want to be responsible for something like that again.

It isn't that supernaturals are _proscribed_ , restricted, carted off to camps and never seen or heard of again. But once supernatural activity started cropping up a couple of decades back, and the birthrate of strangely gifted babies was first noted, and then shot up exponentially, something clearly had to be done.

Supernatural powers, now, are treated like owning a _car_. But owning a car doesn't confer on you the automatic right to actually _drive_ a car. First you've got to learn, and then you've got to pass the test. You've got to prove that you can do it –- that you're a safe, competent, conscientious driver, who isn't going to knock down a little old lady or a toddler, because they're too damn slow getting over the crossing and you're tired of waiting for them to reach the other side.


	11. Chapter 11

So kids and teenagers with paranormal abilities get medicated, now, just like kids with attention deficit disorder, or dyslexia. And if they _don't_ take their meds, and something bad happens –- like if an ADHD kid has a rage fit and thinks it's fun to gun down half the queue waiting in the school cafeteria –- then a supernatural kid gets punished the same way. The meds are different, that's all, and the detention/treatment centers are specialized.

The meds are awful, _awful_. But they're better than the alternative.

Draco doesn't want to skip his meds, and he doesn't want to get involved with a bad boy who thinks it's cool to break rules and cause havoc. ( _Puerile_. Doesn't he know that he's a living cliché? He probably has a _leather jacket_ stashed away, Nirvana albums littering up his Spotify account.)

Draco does hate being locked in the unit, though. He'll get off-grounds privileges eventually, but in the meantime it's driving him crazy. And if he at least got out into the _grounds_ , or even better, the rolling hilly countryside around the unit, at full moon... well, maybe then his wolf would stop savagely pawing and pacing its way around inside here, looking for a way out, snarling and grizzling at him. It's non-stop, since he was put on the meds. But close to the full moon, and particularly at the peak, it's nearly unbearable. Even with the meds, it's torturous.

Draco's not going to try to skip a dose, and he's not going to hurt anybody. But if he can get out there and run, even in a human body, maybe the wolf will give him a minute's peace.

Draco hesitates, and this asshole grins in triumph. “Yeah, I knew you'd be down with it,” he says smugly. It's almost enough to change Draco's mind, but he doesn't get a chance. Potter twitches around, and Draco hears the voices down the corridor too, coming towards them in the rec room.


	12. Chapter 12

He leans into Draco, to whisper closely –- closer than he needs to be, though it's dumbass melodrama, rather than sexy. Draco tries to think so, at least. “I'll fix it up, keep your eyes on me. We got to get out and take a run together, little wolf.” And he's smoothly swerved away from Draco and headed for the door, just as two orderlies arrive in the doorway. Crabbe, forty and fat and okay if you don't push his buttons, and Neville Longbottom, a twitchy temperamental twenty-something who sometimes tries to flirt inappropriately.

Potter's slipped past them, out the door, before Crabbe even gets his mouth open to start off on whatever monologue he's got on his mind. A neat trick if you can work it, and if only Draco had had the presence of mind to manage the same. As it is, he's abandoned, with the two orderlies coming to a halt in the doorway and blocking his exit, the windows shuttered and himself trapped.

His wolf doesn't like it one bit, growls and grizzles at him silently. But with the meds flattening his affect and his responses, and the moon not yet full, it's not going to be able to break out. And in any case, these two tubby blue-tunic wearing authority figures don't present an actual _threat_ , as he reminds it harshly. They aren't here to assault him, nor to imprison him, beyond what he's already experiencing.

They just want to _lecture_ him, and right now that feels bad enough. “Now,” Crabbe says importantly, folding his arms as he settles in to laying down the law, to someone not in a position to tell him where to stick it. His favorite pastime, as Draco has learned. “I hope you've taken your _meds_ , Draco. You're not playing any funny tricks on us, are you? And what are you doing hanging around that Potter character? He surely couldn't skedaddle out of here fast enough, as soon as he heard us coming. _That_ isn't the kind of company you want to be keeping, take a tip from an old hand. How often do I have to tell you to be careful about the company you keep in here, if you want to be one of the winners, and get out on schedule?”


	13. Chapter 13

Draco closes his eyes, and rests his face against the back of the chair. He isn't going to pretend that he finds Crabbe's homilies fascinating. Crabbe's a fucking _idiot_. “Actually, you usually tell me to stop being anti-social and hiding out in my room, and to come out and socialize so I get a good report before my hearing,” he points out. “Not that I'm calling you an inconsistent moron, or anything.”

“That mouth does not help your case, Draco,” Longbottom says tightly. Which skeeves Draco out, because he knows that Neville has thought _other_ things, about his mouth. The way he tries to hang, and pretend like he's one of the gang with the inmates, Draco just knows it. But he zones out and lets them give him a little condescending advice, from on high.

He zones out, whispers to his wolf, pets it and keeps it calm. It's important to keep it calm, because even if it _isn't_ going to flip out and savage these two idiots who think they're so creepy-fatherly and all-wise... Well, it's better for _him_.

See, what no-one tells you about being a wolf, is that wolves are bitches.

It's supposed to be different, for male wolves. Or _mature_ female werewolves, not that there are so many of those around. No-one tells you that _every_ goddamn wolf, regardless of age, gender and stance on YA paranormal novels, has a shrieking, vicious, aggressive little bitch inside. Women beware women, right?

And it's not as if developing young wolves are encouraged to hang out with others of their own kind. All those dreamy spooky romance novels, about a werewolf pack running out under the moon and mating with their life-long furry lover, not so much. Not if the government and various social, medical and county legal bodies have their way in the matter, at least. A young wolf, bitten or born, is strongly encouraged to seek out 'healthy' social networks and wholesome influences. For that, read non-wolf kids, and preferably non-witch, non-warlock, non-pixie, non-shifter, non-vamp... Non-pretty much anything, other than strictly standard low-power regular human.


	14. Chapter 14

_Bad influences_ , all of them, you see. And even then, you'd better not forget the meds that leave a kid drowsy and torpid, that make it hard to think or feel or to _live_ , really. To live, or at least to _feel_ alive.

Anyway, Draco barely knows the few other werewolf kids here on the unit. He isn't actually barred from associating with them, but he might as well be. The nurses and orderlies keep all of them under strict supervision, and the wolves and vamps perhaps most of all. And if any of the wolves seem to be congregating and 'assembling' too much together, they get quickly broken up and encouraged to participate in different activities, preferably on opposite sides of the unit grounds.

So in fact, all he has really is his own experience to go on, and the few 'tell-all' magazine articles from young werewolves he's read, along with a couple of academic and pop-science books on the subject. (There are websites and blogs and channels aplenty on the subject, of course -- but the net access they're allowed is heavily censored.)

He isn't sure from the descriptions –- different people call a _tomayto_ a _tomarto_ , after all. But mostly, they seem to accord with his own experience.

It isn't like part of his own self, most of the time, except when it gets really close to the full moon. (Maybe it's the meds that interfere, make him dissociate the wolf from his own self.) 

It's more like living with a split personality, or at least what people think a split personality is, Draco guesses. It's _exactly_ like sharing his skull with a little teenage bitch. And by _bitch_ , he doesn't mean _female dog._

The wolf is _awful_. 

It isn't about the hunt, about a noble beast chasing lawful prey, satisfying its hunger. 

Fundamentally, it's a nasty, sadistic little cunt that likes to hurt people. The fact that it tends to wear fur and fangs when it's doing it, is just a smokescreen that confuses the issue. In actual fact it's a mean girl that runs on four legs, and would run in packs to tear apart smaller weaker victims purely for reasons of greater efficiency.


	15. Chapter 15

On the other hand, the fact that what it is is a nasty little bully, is probably the reason that he's currently resident in a juvenile supernatural treatment unit, and not behind bars in a real correctional facility. Draco doesn't much like to think back to the incident that got him in here. But, through the mist of being possessed by the wolf, he can vaguely remember –- feeling sickened –- just how much _fun_ it was, to chase and snap, to terrify and to wound and play with victims. Just a little. A lot.

Perhaps no-one was even in danger, not really, not beyond a little chewing and snapping. The wolf likes to hurt. It isn't hungry, and he can't remember a desire to kill. Just to boss around, to be top dog, to bully and control.

Yeah, the wolf is a lot like a teenage girl. A nasty one. Maybe Draco used to be nicer than he is now, but it's hard to remember after the past eighteen months gone past. What you're living and experiencing right now, that's what's vivid, that's what's real, right?

And now, these past months, Draco lives in a fug of hostility and resentment and bad feeling, certainly around the full moon. He laughs when people fall over and get things wrong and are singled out and scapegoated. And he doesn't like it. The wolf is making him a little bitch, too, at least when it manages to poke its head out, from under the fug of the medication.

Draco doesn't like it. But maybe if it manages to get out under the moon, and he gives it a little bit of what it wants, then the wolf will give him a break, and all the people it's bitching about too.

Maybe he'll be a little bit less of a bitch.


	16. Chapter 16

Forty-eight hours later, and the moon's almost on them. Draco's been avoiding getting too close to freaky hottie Potter, avoiding even catching his eye, although he's tried to talk to Draco a few times now. (Once with such determination, that he had to be physically hauled away by Crabbe, who was the charge nurse on duty. He didn't exactly struggle, and Draco suspects he kind of liked it, the _freak_.)

Draco's in his little cubicle-room, now. It's too early for bed, but he's claimed a headache, and looked as wan and haunted as he can manage. With the moon here, fat and full, it got him more sympathy than usual, and an offer of an extra dose of meds if he felt he needed them.

And Draco accepted the offer. He sits on his bed and opens his fist, now. He takes a look, down at the oval yellow pills, then stuffs them in his pocket.

He doesn't need them. Even though he feels queasy, with the wolf roiling about under his skin, closer to the surface than usual. And when he lies back on his bed, arm over his eyes against the moon's chilly silver glare, through the toughened-glass windows, there's a trembling anticipation in his belly, his chest.

Is it justified, by the quiet knock on his bedroom door that follows on almost immediately? Well, he certainly leaps up to reply, with a quiver of amusement in his chest, now. Yes, he's given Potter a wide berth, these past couple of days. He's clearly a smug, potentially dangerous nut, and even the likes of Crabbe and Neville are probably right about him.

And anyway, _he's_ the one who was so keen to hang out and play at being _bad kids,_ back of the class and smoking and whispering, anyhow. Draco knew he could rely on him to persist, even if he threw the staff off the trail by shunning him persistently.

So he opens his door, now, quiet and discreet. And, _oh_.

"Hermione," he says, flatly.


	17. Chapter 17

It's not _Potter_. Obviously.

And Hermione gives him a quick, shifty, anxious smile, then looks up and down the empty hallway, on the scout for staff. “Hey! I just wanted to check you were okay. You know, you said you had a headache, and going to bed early, and the moon...” She smiles up at Draco, four feet ten of witchy, antsy little teen-geek. Draco would sigh in her face, but he isn't quite that much of a bitch. Yet. “Can I come in a minute?” Hermione persists. “If they catch me out here they'll give me hell, and drag me back to the TV room. Yeah?”

Maybe she sees Draco hesitate, or the outright reluctance on his face. Because she gives the corridor another quick up-and-down glance, then she twists her body and opens up her awful hiking fleece a bit, so Draco can see what's underneath. She has a couple of bottles of beer, there –- being skinny enough that she can hide them under enough layers without it being obvious. And from a closer look, and judging by a few flecks on the nap of the fleece, Draco thinks the little delinquent has a spliff hidden in some pocket or other, too. There's a wide-eyed anxious smirk on her face, as she smiles.

Christ knows how she does it, but it seems like Hermy always manages to be holding. She's always got _something_ that acts as an incentive to get the cool kids to hang out with her. Security on the unit is like Riker's Island, but Hermione manages it anyway. Draco suspects that her mother might have something to do with it. Mrs Granger is fat, mid-forties, anxious with bad hair, and Hermy's her only chick. Her maternal devotion glows out of her at five hundred yards distance, and it can only have intensified since Hermione manifested her wiccan gift, got into trouble and wound up on the unit.

Mrs Granger has a friend on the nursing staff. Draco can't _prove_ that there's any connection, any trail of clues that leads from Mrs Granger, to student nurse Lovegood, to Hermione always having some illicit stash or other going on. But he doesn't think the universe is that generous with coincidences, not really.

And _Loony Lovegood_ is _exactly_ the person to have a ton of dubious connections. His first day on the unit, she was chatting to staff on reception in mufti, after a shift. He'd assumed she was an inmate, and he's still not convinced that she isn't, and the rest of the staff just going along with her delusion.


	18. Chapter 18

And Draco doesn't exactly nod or move back or _okay_ it or anything, but somehow Hermione squeezes inside his room anyhow. She stands a little awkwardly for a microsecond, before sitting down at the dressing table chair. It's not that she's presuming or pushy or anything –- hardly. She ducks her head down shyly, doing it, and clearly expects to be yelled at, or asked to leave, or something equally harsh.

No, she just squeezes in like a little mousie begging for a little attention, some warmth, friendship. And it's the very fact that she's so vulnerable and submissive and gentle, that makes it so impossible to reject her. Or even to raise your voice talking to her, or give her a bit of a hint to buzz off and stop bothering people, Draco finds.

He didn't used to be this soft -- nowhere near. But now he's a wolf, and he knows what trouble is. It's afflicted him with a little bit of empathy.

Draco hasn't made any friends in the unit, not in eighteen months, and that's largely by design and intent. But as non-friends go, Hermy is the one who's come closest to getting through the invisible barrier. She just keeps trying, and no matter how many knock-backs she gets she keeps _on_ trying. What can you do in response to that, if you're not prepared to be a stone-cold bitch and just tell her to _fuck off_?

It's a pain in the ass, because Draco has _other plans_ for tonight. The moon's white and full out there, and his wolf is struggling to poke its head out and say hello. To _howl_. Meds, what meds? But Hermione pleads without saying a word. Ten minutes later they're both curled up on his bed, sucking at beerbottles, and jumping up and down now and then to puff smoke through the air-vent.


	19. Chapter 19

And with the _idea_ of the weed and the beer, more than any actual intoxicant effect so quickly and with so little actual psychogenic substance, they're swiftly giggling and shrieking. There's a mad gleam to Hermy's eyes, that she tends to get before she tries to get her witch-gift going, in spite of the fug and deadening stupor of the meds.

Which makes it an even better idea, when Draco takes his chance.


End file.
